The Trails of Life
by Kaliet
Summary: Told in the point of view of Zora Lancaster. Starting from her childhood, it shows her rough journey up to the point where she joins So Random!. Please Read, Review, and Critique!


Thanks to Breadsticks for being my Beta

It's set in Zora's POV. In the year 2005. Ooh.

Chapter 1:  
It was the kind of day that looked dark and stormy, but wasn't.

The 6-year-old flipped through the newspaper, looking for the weather section. It was about 11 A.M in California, and she wanted to see if it was going to actually rain. She hoped not, she wanted to go to the park today.

The brunette smiled when she finally found the weather section; it said it was only going to be partly-cloudy today.

The girl loved being able to read. It was one of the few skills her mom had taught her when she was little. Well, littler, anyways. The first thing she read was her name, "Zora", spelled out in her moms pretty cursive.

Soon enough, she learned how to write her name as well, among other words and phrases. Her handwriting wasn't as good as her mom's, though. Zora's mom told her that she used to practice her cursive for autographs when younger.

About 6 years ago, her mom had moved to California to pursue a life in acting—but obviously didn't get too far.

At first she did pretty well. Being a cute, young, enthuastic girl, she booked quite a lot of commericals and guest spots in shows. She was even a recurring character on some popular shows back in the 90's!

But sadly, in her 15 minutes of fame, she got a little full of herself. She spent much of her money on partying at night, and started missing reharsehals, or coming to set extremely late at the very least.

She also got materialistic. She started buying a ton of clothes and jewlery, flaunting them to the 'lower life' on the streets.

In the few discussions Zora has had with her mom about her 'past life', Zora had found out that her mom never married. This confused her; TV had shown her that only married couples had babies. Zora knew she wasn't adopted, nor was her mom a widow, but she had no idea how she came to be without a dad.

Zora did know however that after she was born, her mom had to cut her already dead acting career to a halt, and she had to start ignorantly caring for the baby 24/7, alone because her family from across the state wouldn't help her out at all. Apparently they where against their daughter's vision of fame and gandeur, and vowed to cut all family ties if she moved.

Unfortunately for them, Katherene Lancaster still decided to move.

And now here she was, in Trenton County, one of the poorest counties near L.A.

Suddenly, she heard the door knob turn from down the hall. Someone was coming into the house. Quickly, she ran in to the living room.

Zora wasn't sure if the people coming in where her mom or some robbers. Their door lock had been busted for a long time, but then again, most people in the apartment complex knew that the Lancaster Family had nothing of value.

To her slight relief, she heard the cursing of her mother. She only said those words after a night of partying. Her talking was slurred, and she could hear that her footsteps was haggard. She didn't exactly understand why the alcoholic drinks sitting on the kitchen counter tops did that to her, but she did understand to never get near her after she's drank a ton of it..

Zora stayed in the living room, holding her breath as the adult walked into the kitchen to set things down.

_She actually went shopping,_ Zora thought with glee, hoping it wasn't just more alcohol.

At last, her mom made her way to her bedroom at the end of the hall. Going back to the kitchen, Zora saw two different colored bags.

The yellow bag always had those adult drinks in them. Ignoring it, she went straight to the white-colored bags. Looking inside, she found bread, eggs, peanut butter, and jelly.

The 6 year old sighed; another week of eggs for breakfast, and PB&J for lunch and dinner it seemed.

Zora went ahead and made herself an early lunch; she didn't plan on coming back home from the park in till later.

After making the sandwich, and putting everything else away, she went to sit at the table.

She wasn't tall enough to sit without a booster seat at the table, but they didn't have a booster seat, so she used a dictionary as one instead.

She liked reading the dictionary, learning new things like words was fun. She wished she went to school; but she didn't have any ways of getting to the school from her apartment. The school system was weak, not offering any buses near her home. Although going to school is a law, it seemed like no one in Trenton cared enough to report them.

Zora was finishing up her sandwich when her mom walked back into the kitchen. She looked alright, she must not have 'partyed' that much last night. Grabbing the yellow plastic bag, she said "So, what are you going to do today?"

"I want to go to the park."

"You can't! It's going to rain soon."

"No, it's not." Zora sighed.

"Says who?"

"Says the weatherman in the weather section of the paper?" She answered. "What where you doing last night?" Zora said, changing the subject.

Zora couldn't tell if her mom looked hesitant or worried at that question. So she made up a new word to describe it:_Wesitant_.

"I was...working." She said, "How'd you like your food? That stuff costs a lot of money you know."

_A lot of money? I'm pretty sure that she got these things at some cheap generic store where they sell things that are close to being out of date._

But she wouldn't tell her mom that. "I like the food a lot." She lied, grimacing at the thought of eating yet another week of eggs.

Zora's mom seemed satisfied with their awkward conversation. Apaprentally now relieved of her 10 seconds of parenting duties, her mom took the yellow bag and left.

Zora didn't want to be around after her mom finished drinking the stuff in the bag. She decided to just put the rest of the food away and leave for the park.

Carefully taking the food items out of its bag, she put them in the cupboard.

She had seen some ants on the counter tops, and saw some roaches run across the kitchen floor. She thought ants were a nuisance, but she hated roaches. But, not wanting to bother with them now, she decided to go ahead to the park.

XXX

The park was only half a block from the apartment. When she got there, however, she saw that a large number of girls her age and older where all dressed up in pink. They went around the park, picking up trash with large tooth-pick things like shes seen criminals do on the edge of the road.

She knew they weren't criminals, however. They where Blossom Scouts. Every once in awhile, the Blossom Scouts would clean up the park, which was nice. What striked her as odd was how many actresses where in this specific troop. She recognized half of them from TV shows she watched.

_Actors school lives must be different_, she thought. Otherwise maybe they just didn't go to school.

Zora didn't want to be seen by them or by their counselor. Questions of "Why aren't your parents with you?" and "Aren't you supposed to be in school?" would pop up for sure.

So she kept walking forward, hoping that no one would glance to her direction.

Jumping over some of the trash on the sidewalk, she finally made it away from the park.

Despite how bored she might become, Zora never ventured out of the park area. Taking note of where she was so she wouldn't get lost, Zora decided to explore in till the Blossom Scouts leave.

Passing a grocery store, she wondered if that's where her mom would get her little amounts of food from. After that, was a couple of buildings, some "Bar" place, and then...a library?

_Huh, I thought my town was to poor to own books._ She thought. Shrugging, she entered the place.

Surprisingly enough, there was a TON of books inside. She had to take some home to read later, perhaps on a rainy day or something.

She went to the children section. There was fantasy, horror, romance...some books looked amusing, others looked pretty interesting. Eventually, she made her way to the 'Comedy' section that was located near a small clearing that held a bunch of chairs for some reason.

Zora had three books in total when she was done looking. Her stomach growled. Her small breakfast wasn't enough, she guessed. She didn't want a PB&J sandwich, but whatever. At least she had food. Zora glanced at the clock, it was 3:00 in the afternoon.

_Wow, I spent a long time here. The Blossom Scouts must be gone by now..._

"Tawni, put away that chap stick and help the others!" She heard an adult say. Turning around, Zora's eyes widened in surprise when she saw that it was the Blossom Scouts once again. Stalkers.

"But Ms. Walker, that's not chap stick! My mom gave me my first lipstick, see?" Tawni said, holding up the brown lipstick so that Ms. Walker could see it. The redheaded adult rolled her eyes, saying "Yes, it's lipstick. But put that away for now, and help your friends okay?"

The actress that she recognized from '_The Goody Gang_' and more recently on her new show '_So Random!_' made her way over to some girls who where setting down some cookies and brownies on a table.

Zora looked around, she had to get out of here, and fast. She figured she could just put the books somewhere and pick them up later when the Blossoms leave again.

She tried to sneak away without being noticed once more, but she was caught.

"Hey girl! Do you want me to help check out your books?" An older Blossom Scout asked her.

"No thanks. You go back to doing...whatever you guys are doing." Zora replied, starting to walk again, but was stopped by the girl once more.

"Are you sure you don't need help? I'm trying to earn my 'Little Helpers' patch, you know!" The dark-haired girl persisted.

"A 'Little Helpers' patch?" Tawni said, overhearing the conversation. "More like 'annoyance' patch, Mandy."

Mandy ignored her, "Where's your parents?" She asked, "Are you here for the Reading Circle?" The 11 year old gestured to the small clearing she saw earlier, which was slowly getting filled with children.

"Reading Circle?" She questioned, looking at the cookies and the punch on the table. She hadn't had those in awhile.

"Yeah, Reading Circle. We have those every Monday for poor kids who don't have enough money to buy awesome things like this limited edition Cocoa Mocha Cocoa lipstick!" Tawni said, showing off her new makeup tool.

"Ugh, that's my co-star for you." Mandy commented, "But anyways, a Reading Circle is when underprivileged kids get read to and have snacks."

_Underprivileged. That's a nice way to put it..._

But it did seem interesting. The food part, of course. Zora had always liked cookies.

"Oh, yeah, that!" Zora lied, "My parents just dropped me off for it. So...I'll be on my way now." Zora said, walking past the two 11 year olds, and on towards the food table.

Ms. Walker was behind the food table. She smiled warmly, "Would you like some of these cookies? The girls made them themselves."

"I'll take a plate full!" Zora said, throwing the cookies onto one of their paper plates.

"...That seems sure like a lot of cookies for a young girl." Ms. Walker commented.

"I'm not that young anymore, I'm six." Zora said, momentarily putting her books down so she could balance her plate of cookies better.

Ms. Walker ran her hand through her gray hair, as if she was thinking of the right way to say something.

"So, you like cookies?" She carefully said.

Zora nodded, "Why're you asking?" She asked.

"When was the last time you ate?" The old lady said, giving her a sympathetic glance.

"Lunchtime." Well, that wasn't exactly a lie. But Zora hadn't really eaten much the past week...although Zora had never starved, she wasn't exactly 'well fed'. Was she really that skinny?

Zora knew her teenage neighbor had died because she was too skinny. Not because she was starving, though. She had some sort of illness or disease where she made herself not eat. She felt sorry for the teenager, but she did get extra food from her for awhile.

Ms. Walker didn't ask her any more questions, but Zora felt that she knew she wasn't telling her the whole truth.

Taking her books and plate of cookies, Zora sat down in the Reading Circle.

A girl about Zora's age read some picture books while Tawni and Mandy routinely interrupted with some comedic performances.

Tawni and Mandy where pretty funny, but the book stories themselves where boring, that girl could barely read herself.

After about 20 minutes of listening to the girl her age read aloud, Zora had eaten all of her cookies.

Zora picked up one of the books she found, trying to shake off the feeling that Ms. Walker was still looking at her.

Opening up the book, she started reading.

'_The early color of the summer sky was of cat vomit..._'

XXX

The book Zora was reading is 'Uglies'. It's sort of advanced I know, but Zora is supposed to be really smart, so I'm thinking she would read those types of stories instead of "Sam I Am" or something xD.

I put Tawni in the blossom scouts because I felt having nice-Mandy made the group too nice :p 


End file.
